My wife and I were on the couch. She looked over at me with wide eyes. Something either really good or really bad was about to happen. I had no idea which one. She held me in a steady gaze. “Honey,” she said “That was the best damn pork chop you have ever made!”
Kaboom! I had made my wife an awesome pork chop! I know this might sound trivial but I take my pork chops seriously. I marinate in garlic and soy (not me but the pork) and then BBQ (yes even in winter-because it make me feel extra manly). For some reason, these particular pork chops kicked ass more than usual. I was thrilled. I had levelled up on my pork chop cooking.
It feels great to level up. We all have sets of skills that are important to us, things we do that feel particularly good. That’s how I feel about pork chops. I seriously think I could out pork chop Gordon Ramsay. (Ok, I actually couldn’t-but it’s fun to dream).
Levelling up feels great. When we know that our skill level has jumped and we’ve made significant progress we need to recognize it. That’s why I think it would be brilliant to have Terry Crews appear magically whenever we level up, tear off his shirt and yell at us “You just levelled up! Right on!”. Then he would give us a monstrous high five and disappear in a masculine mist of old spice. That would be awesome. I think this would be a great deal for Terry as well. He’d meet all kinds of cool people who had just accomplished something, and he’d get to travel. OK, we’d have to work out the whole “Magically appearing” thing (I’ve got an email in to Stephen Hawking) but after that, it would be a breeze.
Imagine: you’re going through your day and you do something awesome. Maybe you’re especially great at your job, maybe you hold your temper for another five minutes, maybe you make a great pancake. All of a sudden the air around you crackles, there is a rip in the fabric of time and space and Terry Crews appears with a 40 lb dumbbell in one hand and a protein shake in the other. He looks at you with a mixture of admiration and positive ferocity and yells “You just leveled up ! Nice looking pancake. The world needs more badasses like you.” Then he drops the dumbbell. Give you a blistering high five and disappears again. Leaving you with a ridiculously heavy weight and an improved sense of self-esteem.
That would feel awesome. While I work the details of this out and get Mr Crews and Mr Hawking on board, we can do this ourselves. When we’re great at something, acknowledge it. When you level up allow yourself to feel terrific.
You do a lot of good over the course of a day and the world does need more badasses like you.
Hawke out.